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Google Scholar vs. Library Databases

27. December 2004 by ob | Kategorien: Bibliotheken, Google, Literatursuche

Even if I will not start blogging all Google Scholar news for sure (please go for that to Peter Suber’s Open Access News), it is an earth-shaking change for libraries world-wide and there are highly interesting reactions in the library community already taking place like this comparison sheet or user faqs. [via Open Access News] Peter expect many more to follow - what’s about Germany? Not that hot topic in our libraries, or?
Nachschlag: Walt Crawford hat wie immer seine eigene Meinung dazu (Cites & Insights 5.1)

1. Announcement and successful completion
are two different things. We don’t yet know
what’s really involved here, exactly what will
eventually be available and when, or what it
will mean.
2. Swamping—losing the stuff you’re really
looking for in a swamp of irrelevant results—
has become more of a problem as Google
and other open web indexes grow. It was
most obviously a problem in the first week
or so of Amazon’s “search in the book,”
when you couldn’t find known items (until
they tweaked the algorithms). Swamping (if
it’s my term, I’m proud to claim it) is likely
to be an enormous problem in the Google
book project: Not insoluble, but enormous.
3. Google’s project spells doom for neither libraries
nor print books. The sky is not falling,
now or six years from now. Your library
probably has a lot of post-1922 books, none
of which can be made freely and wholly
available on Google without publisher
agreement. Your library should do a lot more
than just hand people books one page at a
time. Publishers that have posted books
online have generally found that print sales
increase as a result. The Google project has
every chance of increasing library use and
sales of print books. If I had to bet, I’d bet
on that outcome as a success for the Google
project.